Chani Becker

Chani Becker is a filmmaker, graphic designer and owner of HotHouse Design & Post in Duluth, Minnesota. She grew up in and around Madison, Wisconsin - including many years on a small farm in Blue Mounds. Her family's decision to sell the farm and move to a cul-de-sac on Madison's west side prompted her first documentary video "Out the Window" in 1998.

Chani earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts in Film, Animation and Video from Rhode Island School of Design. She spent several years working as a video editor and motion graphics designer before joining Good for Business, a socially-responsible communications firm in Madison, WI. This experience was pivotal for Chani, since she saw first hand how a business can be an agent of change, and realized that artists and designers have a major role to play in helping to imagine and achieve a sustainable future.

After moving to Duluth in 2006, Chani became a founding member of Sustainable Twin Ports, a community-based organization dedicated to furthering economic, environmental, and social sustainability in Duluth, MN and Superior, WI through education, networking and action. In August 2008, the group launched the Twin Ports Early Adopter Project, which is focused on training businesses, organizations and municipalities in environmentally, economically and socially sustainable practices.

Chani shared the following 2010 update:

This past year, I have created 12 short videos documenting businesses and organizations in Duluth MN and Superior WI that are making changes to become more sustainable using The Natural Step framework.  The goal of these vignettes are to inspire other like organizations to take the first steps to make changes on their own - to show them that others are leading the way.  The videos can be watched at www.youtube.com/sustainabletwinports. I have been in on-going production on a long-format documentary based on the same subject matter which is set to screen in Duluth in the Spring of 2011.   I have also finished the documentary for the 2009 MRCSE conference, which will be shown at the conference this year.  I recently joined the Board of Directors of Sustainable Twin Ports (www.sustainabletwinports.org)  to help develop the capacity of the organization to be a force for transformation in our community.  I continue to run a creative communications studio, HotHouse Design & Post, based in Duluth MN and have been exploring how the ideas of sustainability and surrealism inform one another in life and in art.   I have also been enjoying new collaborations with artists on film and multi-media projects, which has lead to an invigorated creative perspective.

Chani is excited to participate in the MRCSE Workshop as a story teller:

I am thrilled to be participating in this collaborative. Although I am not an educator, as a media maker I am concerned with how to best communicate sustainability principles and practices in an engaging way that speaks to a mainstream audience. I am interested in exploring how to move away from conveying a "fear-based" message regarding sustainability, to an empowering message focused on possibility and creative ingenuity.

As the MRCSE workshop videographer, Chani is interested in exploring ways to share our stories and awakening our collective imagination:

• What is the best way for community sustainability initiatives to share their stories and knowledge gained with other communities on an on-going basis, with the goal of building upon each others' successes and learning from our challenges?
• In order to create a sustainable future, we need to be able to imagine a sustainable future - imagination, creativity, and a sense of play are easy to lose when one acknowledges the looming issues our world is facing. How do we awaken the collective and individual imagination to not only allow for a true compelling vision of a sustainable future, but to inspire the innovations needed to help us achieve it?
• How do we become as inclusive as possible in the sustainability movement, reaching out broadly and encouraging a fully participatory engagement with those we would never have before?

This year Chani asking even more questions about our transformation of a new sustainability narrative:

• If the stories we tell ourselves shape our reality, both personally and on a larger cultural scale, then what are models for or elements of "healthy stories" that can foster a sustainable interior life personally, and a sustainable culture?
• For institutions and businesses, transformation can be slow.  How do you inspire and motivate  organizations to stay the course in moving toward sustainability - over and above the argument that it will eventually lead to more profit?
• What are some approaches for communities to move toward sustainability holistically - as opposed to seeing sustainability as a string of separate problems to be solved by separate specialists or committees?

Chani sees the development of a common knowledge base as an important role of MRCSE:

While there is a great deal happening in terms of sustainability initiatives in our region and around the country, we need to be able to connect and share with one another to develop a common knowledge base and an understanding of each of our "parts" that make up the "whole" of the sustainability movement. This collaborative, regional workshop will give us the forum in which to do this. By each participant gaining a broader, yet more specific understanding of what else is happening in the region, we can be more strategic in our individual and collective initiatives. Not to mention that amazing ideas and world-changning outcomes can arise when like-minded people converge and start talking.

In preparation for the 2010 Summer Conference Wise Elders and Story Teller are sharing their sources of inspiration in what often seems like troubled times and their gifts they share freely to others in the pursuit of a sustainable future. Chani shared the following...

My sources of inspiration are oserving and reflecting on beauty, resilience, chance and the nature of creativity in everyday life.

I suppose each person bears the gift of their unique perspective and life experience, which I would offer freely in conversation, thinking and writing within the collaborative.  My other gifts include engaged listening, compassion - both offered freely - filmmaking, communications design, illustration. 

 Learn more about Chani's work:

In the Fall of 2008, 14 businesses and organizations from the Twin Ports communities of Superior, WI and Duluth, MN committed themselves to becoming "Early Adopters" of sustainability and to receive comprehensive training and professional coaching in sustainability. This Early Adopter Project, led by Sustainable Twin Ports, uses a science and systems-based sustainability action planning framework known as The Natural Step.  Chani is documenting this process and creating video vignettes on each Early Adopter team as they struggle with the real challenges and rewards of becoming more environmentally and socially responsible.

Gloria Dei Lutheran Church...

Even before joining the Twin Ports Early Adopter Project, Gloria Dei Lutheran Church had taken significant steps toward sustainability - from serving fair trade coffee at Coffee Hour to forming their own internal "Green Team". Learn how sustainability aligns with the values of this faith-based community, and what it means for Gloria Dei to become an "Early Adopter".

The Duluth Grill ...

The Duluth Grill becomes an Early Adopter of Sustainability.

This project is funded by the Dr. and Mrs. Bernhard Boecker Charitable Fund and the Global Awareness Fund; both are funds of the Duluth Superior Area Community Foundation.